Uncategorised

Once upon a time … it was possible to walk into a secondhand bookshop and come across rows of lovely matt, 1960s Ladybird Books priced at 50p each. This was quite a few years ago, when I had just started…

I’ve just put together a new page in the ‘Artists’ section on the illustrator Frank Hampson. Frank was one of the small group of artists who, after war time service, worked for The Eagle comic before moving to Ladybird in…

To do something a bit different, I’ve made a video history of Ladybird Books in the 20th century – which you’ll find here: www.ladybirdflyawayhome.com/videos.htm It’s very homespun and you’ll need to turn the volume right up to hear it, but…

I’ve have a very Ladybird focused few weeks. I’ve been corresponding with an ex-employee of Ladybird, the son of a Ladybird artist and with a relative of Willima Murray (author of the Key Word Reader scheme), met some of the…

Last Monday (16th October) I headed down to Foyles bookshop on Charing Cross Road to the event organised by Ladybird to publicise their new book “Boys and Girls” – a look at Childhood in the ‘golden years’ of Ladybird. I…

First of all I should say that I like Libby Purves. I think she is always witty and usually wise and often find myself in agreement with her. In the article she wrote recently in The Times recently, she makes…

The Penguin Group are really beginning to revel in the increasing awareness of Ladybird Books as ‘national treasures’ – the nostalgia and recent social history. Combining this with the growth of social software sites, they’ve now launched a website called…

There’s going to be a free event at Foyles bookshop in London on Monday 15th October at 6.30 pm. It’s to publicise Ladybird’s new book ‘Boys and Girls’ which explores with nostalgia the childhood of the Ladybird Book generation. You…

I’m trying to set up a new area on my website that will contain a few ‘coffee-break’ activities and trivial stuff (as opposed to the deadly serious business of Ladybird Book collecting!). Pretty dresses in well-remembered books seem to have…

There was another Ladybird Book article in a national newspaper last week – this time The Independent on Saturday. Here’s the link to it:http://arts.independent.co.uk/books/news/article2833919.ece The article was written as a prelude to the opening of the exhibition of Martin Aitchison’s…